





•^^ 

* 




PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



AMEEICAN MASS MEETING, 



AND THE 



SPEECHES 



or 



HON. JAMES O. PUTNAM, 



AND 



ROSWELL HART, Esq. 

At Corinthian Hall, Rochester, on Friday Evening, Sept. 7, 1860. 



HELD IN PURSUANCE OF A CALL SIGNED BY NEARLY FIVE 
HUNDRED AMERICANS OF MONROE COUNTY. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

PRESS OF A. STRONG & CO., DEMOCRAT AND AMERICAN OFFICE. 

1860. 






u :^ -' ^ I 







PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES. 



In response to a call circulated for a few days 
and signed by nearly five hnndred Americans of 
Monroe coanty, who are in favor of the election 
of Lincoln and Hamlin, and opposed to the sal« 
of their party to Douglas, a meeting assembled 
at Coriathiau Hall on Friday evening, Sept. 6, 
1860, to listen to speeches from Hon. James 0. 
Putnam, of Chatauqua, and Roswell Hart, Esq., 
of Rochester. 

The hall which will hold about 1500, was well 
filled at an early hour, and the enthusiasm mani- 
fested was very great. The names of Lincoln 
and Hamlin, and the references to the great doc- 
trines of the Republican party were received with 
storms of applause. The manner in which the 
allusions of ihe speakers to old associations in the 
American party, were received, was sufTicient ev- 
idence that a large proportion of the audience for- 
merly belonged to that party. 

The meeting was called to order by 0. L. Shel- 
don, Esq , on whose motion the Hon. Charles J. 
Hatden, Ex-Mayor of Rochester was unanimously 
chosen President. 

On motion of Mr.P. B. Hine the meeting was 
farther organized by the unanimous election of the 
' following Vice Ptesidents and Secretaries: 

Vice Presidents— Hon. F. P. Root, Martin 
Briggs, Henry Churchill, Wm. H. Hill, J. K. Bal- 
entine, 0. L. Sheldon, J. M. Winslow, Joseph Put- 
nam, Charles F. Smilh-, Calvin Doty, George Ar- 
nold, John Marchant, George H. Foster. 

Secretaries— L. Jackson Lacy, T. T. Morse, John 
Haywood, Jr., Paine Bigelow. 

EoswELL Hart, Esq , presented the following 
resolutions which were adopted with great ap- 
plause, viz: 

Resolved Tbatas Americans wepupported Mr rillmore 
in 1856 because of his fidelity wh-'n at the heivd ot the 
Government, to the great measures of peaue which under 
the auspices of Mr. Olay weie pronounced a '.fi'ial settle- 
meal" of the 8 avery question; because of bis manly 
oopoKition to the repeal of the Sacred Compact ot 18.0 
which secured the territory north of St ilegrees and 
30 minutes to freedom; because we believed thatu elect- 
ed he would bring ihe whole power of hisadmiQistration 
to secure justice to every section, and luteiest of the 
country And we liere tTnder bmi our thanks for so justly 
laving the responsibility ot all the evils wbicli have iilUict- 
ed the country for th'' last six y ears.iu connection with the 
Slavery question to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise Hi.s letter to the Union me'etiug in New \ ork in 
February last, justifies all we have ever claimed tor his 
juB ice and inaeninimily . T^ i j- n ^o 

Kesolv«d. That holding Stephen A Pouglas directly re- 
soonsible for the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
and for the iuauguration of the Kevoliitionary polij'y 
which has llirown down so many of the safeguaids ot the 
Constiluti.n, C"nverti':g it from an instrumeut ot jus'ice 
between the iiifferent sections of the country ipto au in- 
strument of slave propaganoism at the expense O the 
eaualicy of the Stut^s. and the ri-hts of nee men and free 
labor we will never vifld him, directly or u.dirrctlv our 
support; we wiU never be the dupes of a bargain which 



n'omiscs ten votes to a man we respect and honor, while 
it'cieates twenty-five men of equil ppwer pledged to the 
lortuues of Mr. Douplns . ^, , ■„„♦ 

Resolved Th^it in the Cbicaso Platform on the subject 
of Slaverv, we find principles for which as Americans, we 
hive alwavs contendt-d, and we nccept it as a sound basis 
rf political faith-faithful to the Constitution and the 

"" Res'^ofve^d.^Kiat we Purport • Abraham Li^oln, bec^ause 
we see in his whole p^ litical life a sound comprebenfive 
Statesmanship, a National heart that embraces m his ^t- 
fections bis whole cnuntrv.and an eminent sense of pub- 
lic justice We find him firmlv committed to thep.eat 
principles of preserving freedom to t'-T"'/'?'^ """■/'f.^: 
andofresistauceto the revolutionary doctrines et tne 
Democratic parly, we Qnd him as firmly i»;.i"t'!'°'^S V' 
tliebilances and compromises pf the Constitution made 
by our Sers who.e maiiitninance alone can preserve in 
its integrity this glorious Republic. 



SPEECH OF HON. JAMES 0. PUTIAN. 

Hon. James 0. Putnam, of Chautauque, was in- 
troduced by the President, and received round af- 
ter round of applause. He spoke as follows: 

Gentlemen, your call'is in these words: 

"Of those who have been hitherto identified with the 
American Party, but who, since the recent attempt to 
merge that organization iuto the Deraccratic l^arty, and 
^eing no practical wav in which thev can aid in theelec- 
tionof Bell and Everett, have determined to support 
im;oln and Hamlix for the Presidency and V>ce Preai. 
dency of the Cuited States, as the best and only alterna- 
tive left for their political actibn. 

I am happy to meet yon on this occasion. I 
know the ground on which I tread; I know the 
men at whose summons I have appeared here, men 
who formed a part of that body of one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand of the citizens of l^ew 
York, who in 185G sought to restore peace to the 
country and justice to its Administration, by the 
election of Millard Fillmore. Men who recognize 
in no man living an infallible teacher, on wnose 
necks is found no collar inscribed, " Bot^n thrall 
of Cediic." Men of independent thought, who 
spurn alike the thraldom of religons Hierarchies 
and of political Juntas. Men trained for the most 
part iu the school of Henry Clay, who learned 
from his lips those sentiments of national justice 
and national brotherhood, which have inspired 
and ever will inspire, their political action. Men, 
I will add, who bring to the Republican altar no 
apologies for their political past, and no hostages 
but their own true hearts for their political future. 
You say in your call that it is your purpose in the 
campaign of 18G0, to vote for Abraham Lincoln. 
Your organization, to which you adhered as I ad- 
hered, so long as it had a single fl^g waving as an 
independent power, has gone down under the tiood 
of current events. 

I here is no American party, it has no candidate 
for the Presidency, and all its members have 
meltett or will melt away into one of the^two 
great parties which are contesting for New York. 
For, gentlemen, there are but two parties in this 
State. Virtually there are but two candidates- 
Lincoln and DuUKlas. With all the rettpect I en- 
tenain for Mr, Bell, I say he has no party in 
New York. He has the shudow of one-it is 
but a shadow, its substance is Douglas. He has 



some friends who nay they have secured ten 
electoral votes to aid in his election, but with the 
same breath, they confess that they create twenty- 
five men to strike him down in the Electoral Col- 
lege. It may seem a serious and matily game to 
those who play it, but to us who refuse to unite 
in thus garlanding our ancient friend for the altar 
of his enemies, it seems the broadest farce ever 
enacted before hi^h Heaven. Gentlemen, I too, 
shall vote for Abraham Lincoln ; not because I en- 
dorse everything that every Republican orator has 
uttered on the stump or elsewhere; not because I 
approve of every measure which some members 
of the party have sought to engraft on State Leg- 
islation; not because I have changed my own 
views upon the questions which arose in 1850 to 
divide the Whig party, and which entered more 
or less into the discussions of the canvass of 1856 ; 
not because I have grown less national in my po 
litical sympathies or sentiments; not because I 
think "the universal negro" is my social equal, or 
in any State where the Anglo Saxon race is the 
dominant one, he should be made in all respects 
their political equal. Others may vote for him for 
any or all of these reasous, but as for me and my 
house, I sustain him because I believe him to be a 
just and adequate man; because on the question 
of the day the Republican party at the Chicago 
convention planted itself on ground which I be- 
lieve to be just and national.and because! believe 
the country needs repose on the subject of slavery, 
in its legislative halls, and that this endless agita- 
tion of the slavery question can never be sup- 
pressed until we overthrow the arch agitators, the 
chief thunderers on this Negro Olympus — the 
leaders of the Democratic party. 

Gentlemen, I do not come here to disguise any 
fact or any sentiment, but to present my views of 
the questions of the day as frankly as my nature 
is capable of presenting them. I start then with 
this proposition : My support of Lincolr),iQ view of 
the principles involved in the contest, is to me, a 
New York American, the natural, the logical se- 
quence of my support of Mr. Fillmore in 1856. — 
The corollary of the proposition is this: To vote 
for twenty five electors pledged to Mr. Douglas, 
thus giving him about one-sixth of all neccessary 
to secure his election, however the dose may be 
sweetened to prevent nausea, would be to belie 
my whole life, and sacrifice every principle for 
which, as an American, I contended. 

First, I ask you, what class of men north and 
south did Mr. Fillmore represent? The old Whig 
or Clay party south who had no sympathies with 
the slave propogandising element of the Demo- 
cratic party, or with the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, but having an earnest purpose to re- 
buke that stupendous wrong by the elevation of a 
man known to he hostile to it. Men whose for- 
tunes were hound up with the South, but still of 
just and moderate views of the Henry Clay type 
on the whole group'of the slavery questions Men 
who stood as they now stand, ready to put down 
disutiion wherever and whenever it shows its hy- 
dra head, wnd «ho then felt as we felt, that the 
only way to restore peace to the cotntry, was to 
overthrow the Democratic party, whose whole life 
and breath is agitation. 

The American party at the North, and especially 
in New York, were men, the great body of whom, 
in relation to the revolution inaugrated in 1851, 
and in relation to the outrages of border ruffim- 
ism ih Kansas, and in relation to the great doc- 
trines of the Fathers, that Freedom is the creature 
of divine law, the normal condition of every inch 
of territory, and slavery the creature of local law, 
Bympathif^ed with tlie llPi)ubli('anH. Tho^e were 
living issues, and upon them they cordially agreed. 



There were dead questions, not issues, growing out 
of the Compromise of 1850, which were galvan- 
ized into spasmodic action in that campaign, about 
which they differed with the Republicans. But they 
had no practical bearings, and were only of ser- 
vice to intensify and embitter the canvass. 

Every act of the Democratic party and of its 
leaders, from 1854 down through the canvass of 
1856, was calculated to inflame to madness the 
northern mind. The repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, promising peace, and giving us civil war, 
making the territory of Kansas the theatre of un- 
paralleled outrages and wrongs, for a time jostled 
the most conservative men from their calm an- 
chorage, while they kindled into devouring flame 
the great mass of the opposition. Then succeeded 
the attack of Brooks on Sumner, in the Senate, the 
most dastardly and base act of cowardice that 
ever degraded a legislative hall, an act sanctioned, 
honored and rewarded by the Democratic South. 
Then it was that a storm of indignation arose at 
the North, which when at its height would have 
swept before it the pillars of the government, had 
they stood in its way. The Presidential campaign, 
came on the heel of all these events, and it took a 
man storm proof to resist the current that swept 
devouringly by him. But the great mass of New 
York Americans remembered that in the slave 
States were the old friends of the Union, and the 
Constitution, their brother Girondists, who were 
willing to try with them to find a deliverance by 
the middle path of conservative action. They 
hoped to do so by the election of Millard Fillmore. 
And here let me for the truth of history say, that 
the great body of New York Americans sustained 
Mr. Fillmore to elect him. If any man in the 
American party employed it to draw off forces 
from the support of Fremont to enure to the bene- 
fit of Buchanan, he was a false American, a be- 
trayer of a noble trust for the most unwoithy pur- 
poses. I thought, you thought, we could over- 
throw the Democratic party, and rebuke Fierce 
and Douglas and all other plotters against their 
country's peace, by preserving our relations with 
our Southern allies. We tried it faithfully, we 
failed signally, and under circumstances much 
more favorable for an election of a middle ground 
man by a middle ground party than the present. 
And if there be a single Republican within the 
sound of my voice, who still doubts the soundness 
of Mr. Fillmore on the question of the Repeal 
and its outgrowths, let me tell him that had we 
succceeded, and not failed with our candidate as 
you failed withs, your border ruffianism, and 
ballot box stuffing, would never have been heard 
of in Kansas, but the whole power of the govern- 
ment would have been brought to give security 
and peace to the settlers, and Kansas, long ere 
this, would have taken her place as a free State in 
the glorious sisterhood of the Republic. Rut we 
failed, and you failed, and between our divided 
forces the Democratic party entered upon new suc- 
cesses to the perpetration of new outrages, and 
of bolder attacks upon the Federal Constitution. 
It has taken long strides towards the complete 
revolution of the government on the slavery 
question, it needs but the success of the author 
of all our present evils to consummate their pur- 
pose. 

" We sustained Mr. Fillmore to rebuke and sup- 
press the agitation by the Democratic party, of 
slavery in Congress. Its agitation by discussion 
among the people upon ethical or economic prin- 
ciples, if it must pass by that natue, can never, 
ought never to be suppressed. You must crush 
out a'l thought, all sensiiiility, all human feeling, 
before civilized men will cease to discuss all the 
relations which labor bears to capital in any quar 



tef of the globe. So long as man is interested in 
his fellow man, so long he will feel and write, and 
talk upon a question so close to the heart of hu 
manity. But when it comes to acts ot aggressive 
legislation, wlen the public peace is disturbed by 
revolutionary doctrines, engrafted upon the com- 
pact of the Fathers, or by revolutionary overthrow 
of subsequent compacts of equal moral force and 
obligatiou; when the stronger in political power 
thus seek to defraud the weaker; whether the ag- 
gression come from the North or from the Soutb, 
from slave propagandists, or abolition propagand- 
ists, then is the time for conservative men to take 
the field, and to resist tbe innovation. You and 1 
recognize all the conatitutional rights of slavery, 
we take that sacred instrument in its letter, we 
take it as expounded by the framers, and the suc- 
ceeding generation of statesmen, and we find tbat 
the relation of servile labor is recognized, and to 
a certain extent its security guaranteed. We do 
not stop to a-ik whether the Federal Constitution 
adopted in 1787, accords with all the gener^il doc 
trines of the Magna Charta of 1776, we find certain 
provisions in the bond of 1787, and we adhere to 
them. We will not agitate their repeal; we will 
frown down, and if we can, we will vote down 
every party and every man who seeks to disturb 
the original bond of the American Union. 

I repeat, we sustained Mr. Fillmore to rebuke 
and suppress the agitation of slavery by the De- 
mocratic party in Congress. 

The responsibility of all our modern agitation 
which has been in tbe least alarming, lies at the 
door of the Democratic party. Let us consult 
history. The North has been anti slavery in gene- 
ral seutiment, almost from the beginning of the 
government. But the Democratic and Wbig par- 
ties kept up their organizations, and fougbt all 
their battles over monetary questions and questions 
of National industry and commerce, down to 1844 
A few abolitionists petitioned earlier than that for 
the abolition of slavery in tne District of Colum 
bia, and after the settlement of the right of peti- 
tion as a principle, they were powerless, and tbe 
merest fragment of the Northern opposition votes. 
The first great element of agitation, was the an- 
nexation of Texas, sought by Southern Democra 
tic statesmen to increase the political power oi 
slavery, and enhance the value of that relation of 
labor. 

The Whig party of the North resisted it to a 
man. Mr. Webster was then at the height of his 
influence and power, and in the Senate and out of 
the Senate, his mighty utterance was against the 
project, because it increased the number of slave 
States with the original inequalities ceded by the 
constitution. 

The Southern Whig party also resisted it, as a 
measure of the dominant partv, if not because in 
sympathy with their northern allies. The Democ 
racy triumphed. Texas was admitted, and "agi- 
tation" was fairly inaugurated as one of our po- 
litical divinities. 

The next disturbance of the peace of the coun- 
try was the Mexican war, carried on to secure new 
territory for the very same purpose that Texas 
was annexed — territory for more slave States. — 
The project succeeded, so far as the acquisition 
was concerned, but it did not work to the will of 
the authors. Tbis Northern hive of freemen, the 
restless foot of whose adventure scales every 
heigbt, traverses every desert, crosses every sea, 
to test every new source of wealth before any 
other part of the world has put on its sandals for 
the journey, had opened the golden gate of Cali- 
fornia, and crowned her with the evergreen wreath 
of freedom before the shackles were forged that 
were to bind her upon the altar of slavery. An- 



other Minerva, she sprang fall armed from tLie 
head of northern labor and claimed to add another 
star to her country's ensign. 

You know the subsequent history, the Compro- 
mises of 1850, which so divided for a time the 
country and parties. No matter who was right or 
who was wrong in their views of that settlement, 
it was made amid a storm of public passion which 
was many months in subsiding. But substantial- 
ly it did subside. The greatest hostility to the 
measures was found in the Wbig party North, who 
felt that California had a right to come in on her 
own merits, and that her admission should not 
form the basis of a compromise upon a series of 
questions. Many of you, witb me, folUowed Mr. 
Clay then as we follow him now. I say the storm 
had substantially subsided when in 1852 the Whig 
party and that portion of it too who had most 
strenuously resisted the compromise measures, 
nominated for its Presidential candidate a sup- 
porter of tho:ie measures. Gen. Scutt, and placed 
him upon a platform which expressly declared 
that those compromise measures, 'toe act known 
as the Fugitive Slave Liw included," were receiv- 
ed and acquiesced in by The Whig Party of the 
United States, as a, " settlement in principle and 
substance of the dangerous and exciting questions 
which they embrace." It further declared that it 
"deprecated all further agitation of the question 
thus settled." 

General Scott, on this platform, received over 
one hundred aud fitty thousand Whig votes in New 
York, while the whole abolition and anticompro- 
miae vote was but a little over thirty thousand. It 
was a halcyon time, the winter of our discontent 
was passing away, "and the voice of the turtle 
was heard in the land." <leneral Pierce came to 
the Presidential chair congratulating the country 
upon its repose, and referred in his Message to 
those measures as a final seitlement of the slavery 
question. Pandora's box was hermetically sealed. 
An administration favorable to the measures was 
triumphantly in the ascendant, aud it was in the 
power of the Demecratic purty to keep sealed that 
box, and to secure everlasting repose to the conn-' 
try on the slaveiy question; I mean so far as Con- 
gressional or Stale legislative action is concerned- 
I do not believe there was a man at the North who 
hoped to create an anii-slnvery p><rty strong 
enough to get possession of, or any strong influ- 
ence in, the government, if the Democratic party 
made no new aggressive advance. If there was 
one such he would have been most sig ally disap- 
pointed. The occupation of agitators was gone, 
the country panted for repose. It felt its consti- 
tutional obligations, and was ready to obey them. 
There was no fuel to kindle new fires, and the old 
ones were fast being smothered in their own 
ashes. 

The opposition to the Democratic party would 
soon have consolidated itself upon some basis on 
industrial, or monetary or other questions. It was 
very plain sailing — the trouble was not to keep, 
but to break, the peace. Now, gentlemen, in the 
winter of 1854, the winds were all loose again, the 
ocean was lashed into fury, and the wildest spirits 
were riding, not directing, the storm. 

The fatal box had been again opened, and Hope 
herself, this time, escaped. 

Gentlemen, who let loose the winds? Who afresh 
fanned into flames that reached the heavens the pas- 
sions of an infuriated people? Who was this time 
the arch Agitatok? Whose was the saciiiegiou.'i 
band that hurled into a fairer dome than that of 
Epbesus, the brand which kindled into devouring 
fire the division wall between Freedom and 
Slavery? Was it Senator Seward, or Giddings, or 
Garrison, or Sumner? It was the man who, in 



1844, in a speech made at Carrolton, Illinois, is re- 
ported lo have used these words of the noble au- 
thor of the Miasoari Compromise: 

Henrr Clay is a black-hearted Irailor. and the only 
American statesman wlio ever sold himself for Bntisn 
gold 

I quote from the Peoria Democratic Union, his 
own organ, as I find it in 'The World." 

The man who now with hands d>ed with the 
blood of more than five hundred American citizt-ns 
who fell in the civil war of Kansas, coiijurerl by 
his damnable spells, sues to the friends of Henry 
Clay to lift, him out of his political deeps and 
stamp him with the royalty of patriotic statesman- 
ship. 

The man who after pouring the lowest abuse 
upon the American party, scoffing at it, railing 
at it, like a very drab, now skulks a lOut its car- 
case, which prays for friendly entombment, and 
begs that with us poor remains he may patch up 
his ladder to the Presidency. And I am sorry to 
say that the rfe6//s of the American par'y of New 
York is now so poor, is suok so low from its form- 
er glory, that it has no higher office than that. A 
round in the ladder of Douglas' ambition! If he 
shall attain his purpose, he will surely to the lad- 
der turn his back — 

"Scorning the base degrees 

By which he tlid ascend." 

I question no man's right of independent poli- 
tical action; I exercise it myself; but I do spenk 
of the business of transferring the poor remains of 
the once noble Americau party to the bitterest ene- 
my, of all it has ever held sacred. As an Ameri 
can, who never asked of the party but one favor- 
that of serving it faithfully, with no reward save 
the cousciousness of duty done— I wash my hands 
of it. If I wautei" to support Mr. Douglas, I would 
do it boldly, unapologetically. Never in masquer- 
ade; never in so thin a disguise as this which Ot- 
tendorfer has taught them to loathe. 
We are ou the 8ubj^ct oi the democracy responsi- 
ble for flavery agitation. I have shown you who 
re-opened the closed controversy. Douglas' and 
Pierce's adniiijistration, followed by Buchanan's 
attempt to force slavery on Kansas by biyonet 
and fraudulent ballot — the Dr^d Scott decision, 
striking down with one fell swoop the common 
law doctrine in relation to slavery, and the Con- 
Btitutiou, as established and interpreted by the 
Fathers and their successors, down to Pierce's 
Administratiiin — the still bolder and constantly 
increasiuK demands for a Slave code, for interven- 
tion to protect slavery; — all these fresh elements 
of agitntion are the witnesses to sustain my 
charge. 

Now let me call a witness from abroad. Inl85G 
the American party North and South attempted 
to overthrow the Democratic party, because they 
agitated the Slavery question. 

I hold in my baud a copy of a letter of that no- 
ble old Whig and American, Kenneth Raynor, of 
North Carolina, written in October of 185(i, to an 
American meeting in Pennsylvania. He says: — 
''It is the Deni jcralic party leaders and their drill 
eeargeants throughout the Union who are the an 
thorr* of nil the evils tlia' now beset the country, 
growing out of the slavery question. It is no new 
thing with that parly; it is an old game with 
them." 

He proceeds to say that thfy saw the only 
chance of keeping p"Wer was to " get up another 
furore about Slavery," and they found an oppor- 
- tunity in the organization of the territorial govern- 
ment in Kansas, and at the wave of the wand of 
the detUDoraiic magicians Slavery agitatiou rose 
in lull panoply from the grave. " From that day 
to this," he says, " the country has had no peace; 



Slavery agitation rules the hour." Four years 
later I echo him, "From that day to this the country 
has had no peace; Slavery agitation rules the 
hour." 

This is one of hundreds of kindred testimony 
from Americans of the South, that the democra,tic 
party is responsible for Slavery agitation. I bring 
another witness and the last one. 

Our leader in 185G, Mtllard Fillmore, said in his 
letter to the Union meeting last winter, held in 
New York, " that the floods of evil now swelling 
and threatening to overthrow the Constitution and 
deluge this land with fraternal blood, were trace- 
able"— to Stephen A. Douglas?— "to this unfortu- 
nate act." — [Repeal of the Missouri Compromi^eJ. 

This was after the John Brown raid, and the at- 
tempt to fasten the responsibility of that mad pro- 
ject on the mere discussions of the institution of 
Slavery by Northern Statesmen. 

Let them call further witnesses who want them. 
You know, and I know that Mr. Douglas called 
into being the Republican party. He exorcised a 
spirit of whose nature he knew little, when mad 
ambition led him to tear down that sacred ram- 
part of freedom, while he let slip the, dogs of war 
to ravage and desolate the plains of that territory. 
He may degrade the candidacy for the Presidency 
to as low a point as he will, by wandei ing over the 
country showing his wounds, and appealing to 
men whom he has spent his life in villifying. Bat 
he will learn from tens of thousands of such men 
as Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, who partici- 
pated in the nomination of Mr. Bell, and preferred 
his election to that of any of the other candidates, 
but who is disgusted with the attempt to set Doug- 
las on Mr. Bell's shoulders, and now declares, 'Mr. 
Bell shall never be elected by my consent, by a bar- 
gdin witli Mr. lloiiglas and his friends, or with Mr. 
Breckinridge and his friends.'''' ' fis an age of short 
memories, but Mr. Douglas' political past is not 
forgotten, and the great body of Americans will 
of this give him most emphatic evidence. 

I think you now understand what I meant when 
I said that my support of Mr-. Lincoln is the logical 
sequence of my support of Mr. Fillmore. I was 
then trying to rebuke and suppress agitation. The 
experiment proved that it could not be done in 
connection with our conservative Southern allies. 
The reign of terror which crosues out all freedom 
of political action at the South, will not now per- 
mit of their union with the Northern opposition on 
affirmative grounds. We must first beat the de- 
mocracy. 

The pressure was so great even in 1856, that at 
least fifty thousand men who should have voted 
for Ml-. Fillmore, skulked under the wing of the 
democracy to avoid the stigma of supporting an 
Abolitionist! 

The cry of mad dog was raised against Mr. Fill 
more at the South, and he lost a half dozen Sooth 
em States through the sheer cowardice of men 
who should have resisted the senseless howl. — 
Themselves at heart opposed to slavery agitation, 
they sought refuge from the home storm in the 
camp of the agitators. I saw this timidity on the 
part of our Southern allies, in that campaign, and 
I forewarned them. I addressed a letter in the 
middle of September to an American journal in 
the South, which was widely published in our or- 
gans North and South, in which I used this lan- 
guage: 

"We of the North, who stand by the constitu- 
tional rights of our Southern brethren, but with- 
out abandoning our own, expect the same class 
of our Southern brethren to stand with us in this 
crisis. * ♦ ♦ H" the South shall conclude 
that their safety is in the arms of a Southern sec- 
tional party, we of the North shall not mistake » 



nor shall we fall to improve the lesson. Northern 
conservatives deprecate sectional parties, bet if 
such they must have, they will not go south of 
Masonand Dixon's line for political association. 
We shall fisht on our own ground and for our own 
section. This is the first law of nature, and we 
need no instraction to obey it, save the force of 
example." Now, the great mass of conservatives 
of the South were tiue in that campaign, but 
there were enough cowards among them to leave 
Mr. Fillmore high and dry on the beach in every 
Southern State, excepting gallant Maryland, dem- 
onstrating to my mind, that the business of re- 
deeming the country from democratic license, and 
of suppressing slavery agitation, must devolve, for 
once, on the northera opposition. Sol then said 
to our Southern allies — so I now say and act. 

Fiddling for Mr. Douglas, " the author of all our 
evils," as Mr. Fillmore tells us — holding up his 
skirt tails as he perambulates over the country in 
search ot his mother, putting our necks under his 
feet that he may have altitude enough to reach 
the Presidency, is not my way of sappressing agi- 
tation or of rebuking agitators. 

While I was thus p'epared for a northern alli- 
ance in the campaign of 18G0, I never would 
have so allied myself, had the Republican party 
assumed a revolutionary or aggressive position 
toward the South. Their platform is entirely con- 
servative, for it proposes to adbere to the old pol- 
icy and to resist the new. It is substantially that 
of the Binghampton (American) platform. Its 
fourth resolution says, substantially, " You fifteen 
Southern states have your slavery; it is your bus- 
iness, not oars The Government owes you pro- 
tection against all invasion from without, and your 
own exclusive control over your institutions is 
just and necessary to maintain this Union, and to 
all your rights the Republican party pledges it- 
self." Its other resolutions touching slavery, are 
but a reaflBrmation of the life-long doctrines of 
Clay and Webster. 

They have placed in nomination for the Presi- 
dency, a man vfh<\ deeply sympathizing with the 
central idea of the Republican party, preservation 
to freedom of territories now free, holds to every 
general consei votive principle which we advocated 
in 1856. 

He realizes, as we do, the necessity of a present 
anion of the northern opposition to overthrow the 
reigning dynasty, but except as a necessity, this 
temporary separation of the opposition is not to 
his taste more than it is to yours or mine. With 
that ingenuous transparent truthfulness which 
seeks no concealments, he has expressed his 
views on this subject in his published speeches. 

In his speech delivered at Cincinnati, in Sep- 
tember, 1859, he says: 

" There are plenty of men in the Slave States 
that are altogether good enough for me to be 
either President or Vice President, provided they 
will profess their sympathy with our purpose, and 
will place themselves on the ground that our men, 
upon principle, can vote for them. I should be 
glad to have some of the many good, and able,and 
noble men of the South, to place themselves where 
we can confer upon them the high honor of an 
election upon one or the other end of the ticket — 
It would do my soul good to do that thing. It 
would enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as 
we select one of their own number to carry out 
our principles, we are free from the charge that we 
mean more than we say" 

Is that being catjined, cribbed and confined 
within the walls of a bigoted sectionalism? 

Let me read one further extract from the same 
speech, for it reveals, as in a mirror, the whole 
head and heart of Abiaham LiDcoln on this ques- 
tion of slavery. He says: 



"I say we must not interfere with the instita- 
tion of slavery in the States where it exists, be- 
cause the Constitution forbids it, and the general 
welfare does not require us to do so. We must 
not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave Liw, be- 
cause the Constitution requires it, as I under- 
stand it, not to withhold such a law. But we 
must prevent the outspteading of the institution, 
because neither the Constituiion or general wel- 
fare requires us to extend it. We must prevent 
the revival of the Africtn slave traf'e, and the 
enacting by Congress of a Territorial Slave 
Code." 

Such is Abraham Lincoln. It sounds like a 
passage from Clay or Webster, defining, in terms 
so clear, so just, so bold and graphic, the con- 
stitutional rights and duties of the American peo- 
ple. 

And yet,with the Chicago platform before them, 
with Lincoln's avowed national sentiments before 
them, the charge is made that " abolition" is the 
central purpose, the vital energising force of the 
Republican party, and this by men who ought to 
know better. 

Mr. Lincoln, I believe, will be elected President 
by the people, and yet if he had avowed himself in 
favor of aggressive movements against slavery in 
the States, he could not receive a single electoral 
vote. I go farther, and say that if, when elected, 
he should turn his administration into one of abo- 
lition propagandisu, if be should falsify the Chica- 
go platform, and seek, not fairly, to carry out the 
avowed purposes of the Republican party, but to 
build up a Northern aggressive, slavery agitation 
party, his administration would sink even to a 
lower deep than Mr. Buchanan's has reached. He 
would not have a score of members of Congress 
from the whole North to sustain him. 

He will receive at least two hundred and fifty 
thousand votes in the State of New York, from 
men who would rise in their indignation to over- 
whelm his Administration and his treasonable ad- 
visers. 

The seventy-five thousand suporters of Mr. Fill- 
more in 1856, now supporting Mr. Lincoln in New 
York, would lead the van of that army of men who 
would rise to hurl him from power. I know the 
case is not supposable, for Lincoln has the royal 
impress of an honest man on his soul, and the union 
of these States by the maintenance of all the Con- 
stitutional rights of all its interests and sections, 
is the master passion of his political nature. — 
Nevertheless, I use this method of saying what I 
know — that the Republican party could not live 
an hour,would be as poor and contemptible as the 
Garrison party of Abolitionists, if it should come 
into power with a lie in its right hand, on this 
question of preserving, in good faith, the balances 
of the Constitution. 

But are there not orators in the Republican par- 
who are full of bitterness and denunciation of the 
South and of their institutions? Certainly there 
aie a few men; about three or four names are gen- 
erally served up to us by our Bell-Union friends of 
that stamp. But what has that to do with the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Lincoln? 

They dwell on the horrible side of slavery, until 
it broods over their souls like a hideous night- 
mare, and they serve up to us a dish of atrocities 
every time they open their lips. I confess it is 
not to my taste, and I know little of their speech- 
es, save from report. I have learned more of that 
class of speeches, from that retired hut cultivated 
and most excellent gentleman, the Hon. Daniel D. 
Barnard, who seems to have a morbid passion for 
groping about in the charnal house, when he could 
feed on the fair mountains and in the green val- 
leys where Abraham Lincoln would lead him, than 
from all other sources. He has made a compre- 



hensive paper of "Elegant Extracts," from that 
class of Phillipics. I should as soon think of gath- 
ering up the mad and treasonable rhetoric of Keitt 
and laying it at the door of Breckenridge. There 
are all sorts of temperaments in the Republican 
party. It has been on the defensive for six years, 
resisting aggressions every hour. The accomplish- 
ed Sumner, elected by a coalition of Abolitionists 
and Democrats to the Senate, has deep private 
griefs to stimulate his natural hate of slavery; — 
while the earnest and eloquent Lovejoy hears the 
voice of his brother crying from the ground, call- 
ing upon him to avenge his martyrdom. 

There is another class, philosophic thinkers 
who discuss this question of labor North and 
South, and its relation to capital, and a few of their 
aphorisms have almost frightened our "Union" 
friends out of their senses. Senator Seward at 
the North, and Senator Hunter at the South, are 
the leading representatives of this class. Both 
scholars, both philosophic, calm, earnest thinkers 
The one thinks free labor the best system in all 
latitudes; tha other thinks the servile relation 
best, certainly in the planting Srates. The one 
concurs with Jefi'erson, who seems to me to be the 
political father of Senator Seward, for I know of 
no man who so completely mirrors him in his gen- 
eral views of society, and the relations and rights 
of individual man; while the other thiuks Jeffer- 
son was in error, aud devotes himself to educating 
over again the Southern mind. Now I need not 
say in this presence that I do not concur in all 
the abstract notions of either of these gentlemen. 
I have for twenty yearsdiffered with Mr Seward in 
opinion upon some questions. I gave him my 
first vote for Governor; I wrote in his behalf my 
first newspaper article, more than twenty years 
ago; yet I soon discovered that upon some ques- 
tions we did not concur, but they were questions 
about which men ever have differed Hnd ever will 
differ, and, generally of an abstract charactei'. 

But I never saw the day when I did not believe 
that Mr. Seward, if called to the Presidency, 
would administer the government on this very 
question upon a basis which the whole country 
would deem entirely just, national, wise and pat 
riotic. He may think, as a philosopher, that their 
is an " irrepressable conflict " between the two 
systems of labor, and the Democratic party is cer 
tainly doing all in its power to justify the opinion, 
and that one or the other must prevail universally. 
But I see no more harm in this abstract opinion 
when utiered by Seward than when uttered by Jeff 
erson, with whom he concurs. The question is, 
what policy would Mr. Seward advise as a Repub 
lican leader, so far as he could influence it — not 
■what abstract opinion does he entertain of the 
future of slavery. I do not think there is an in- 
telligent Bell Everett man in the State of New 
York who believes he would advise any aggres 
sive action upon the Southern States, or upon 
their constitutional safeguards. Mr. Seward is un- 
doubtedly a bold thinker, but his whole life and 
whole character impress upon me the conviction 
that ia action, with governmental responsibilities 
on his shoulders, he would be hs conservative as 
justice could ask. Radical abstract thought, and 
confervative practical action, are by no means in- 
compatible. 

I have said this much of a few of the Republi- 
can leaders, because of the attempt to use their 
names, as nurses do stories of ghosts, to frighten 
children. 

We never hear of Mr. Corwin, or Edward Bates, 
or of any of that school of Republicans, froniour 
alarmiHtd. I don't believe we shall find them 
quotin« a late article of the Courier aud Inquirer, 
Mr. Seward's most iuthmate, personal and devoted 



in favor oi bes-towiug 

the right of life, lib- | 

jinesB. YoQ will not / 

he crater of a Vesuvi- ^ 



organ, in which it declares that the negro ts mitQT 
off in present slavery, than he would be in a state 
of freedom, and that it is opposed to bis emancipa- 
tion without expatriation. 

The discussion of issues I shall leave to those 
who follow me. Indeed, yon have already formed 
your opinions, or you would not be here enrolling 
yourself under the Lincoln banner. You are de- 
termined upon resisting in the only feasible way 
the revolutionary doctrines inaugurated by Mr. 
Douglas. You believe the system of free labor to 
be now, and in all future tinrie, best for the white 
race, best for humanity. You will seek to pre- 
serve our territories and oar present free States 
for that system of labor. The State of Texas, now 
enveloped with incendiary fires, its citizens butch- 
ered by brutal force, aud, more horrible still, its 
women violated by savage heat, oppressive fear 
and danger everywhere, the legitimate fruits of a 
system which ignores the principle of personal 
freedom, is an argument more persuasive than all 
the rhetoric in the universe, in favor of bestowing 
upon the labor of any State 
erty and the pursuit of happi 
build our future Empire on ih 
us, when you can find the solid rock or the firm 
earth for a foundation. 

I notice your call, among other reasons for your 
action, expresses the impossibility of electing Mr. 
Bell. You honor Mr. Bell as a man and a states- 
mun. So do I, and never until now has my politi- 
cal action been severed from his. But, gentle- 
men, he has no distinct party at the North, and 
the only hope of his friends, is to defeat an elec- 
tion by the people, aud throw the Presidency into 
that boiling cauldruu, the House of Representa- 
tives. They chaffer aud bargain here with Doug- 
las, in New Jersey with Breckenridge, anywhere 
with any body,friends or foes,"black spirits or white, 
blue spirits or gray," who will give them a coali- 
tion. In this State they are tickled with ten elec- 
tors for Mr. Bell, and then create tweniy-five to let 
Douglas swallow up the ten. No calamity could 
befall the conntry equal to that which would en- 
sue from throwing the election into Congress. 

The genius of jobs would preside, and corrtip- 
tion unparalelled, undermining all public confi- 
dence in official purity, and sending its demoraliz- 
ing influence down through every grade of official 
station, and even into the ranks of the people, poi- 
soning all the fountains of our political life, would 
be the almost neccessary result. It is an experi- 
ment upon the public morality we cannot afford. 
Let somebody be elected by the College, let Lin- 
coln go to the wall if anybody else is stronger 
with the people — only save us the perils which 
thicken around this Congressional experiment. 

Gentlemen, I end as I began, by saying that 1 
want an end to this negro agitation. If the dem- 
ocratic party will stop legislating in Congress and 
in the Supreme Court about the negro, we will go 
to legislating for the white man. It they will stop 
agitating and leave us alone, the negro will sink 
out of sinht as a political character. We know he 
is of an inferior race, inferior normally, inferior by 
foice of circumstances which press down upon 
him heavily at the north as well as at the south. — 
He is under the social mill stone, and so far as his 
status in society is concerned, he is everywhere at 
the bottom, and persistently kept there. If there 
is any creature I piiy in the world, it is the negro. 
In his native land he is the victim of civil wars — 
without any opportunity for elevation above the 
lowest grade of barbarism. Stolen from his trop- 
ical home, he is the victim of the heartless cupid- 
ity of the white man, driven into the slave shambles, 
robbed of every blessing of a personal freedom. 
In the Slave States he has no home, and by law. 



no wife, no children, no name, no life but task- 
work for another- At the north, it is a little bet 
ter, yet he is here by the social law driven out of 
every employ that would give him fellowship with 
white labor. He whitewashes wall?, and once 
shaved our face?, but this now is denied him. — 
The white man has turned barber. He cannot 
eat with u?, nor worship God with us, nor receive 
his little education with us. If he learcs a me- 
chanic's trade, and enters a shop to sell his skill 
for bread, every white man drops his too), and 
"yon leave, or I must," is the universal cry. 

I am not complaining. I am stating facts— ex- 
hibiting to you the fruits of a social law which at 
the North has the force of an instinct. Give to 
the negro what you will, so long as he occupies 
his present relation to Northern society, you will 
give him but a stone for bread and a scorpion for 
fish. Remove from him this mountain of preju- 
dice which all men feel, the most humane as well 
k as the most unfeeling, a prejudice which places 
the negro beyond the possibility of social or citi- 
zen elevation, and you will do him a service — a 
service which, until your instincts are changed, 
will never be done him. In the midst of the white 
race he is an inferior in every relation, bond or 
free, the slave of caste if not of law. Yet this is no 
reason why we should enslave him, no reason why 
we should demoralize our own posterity by es- 
tablishing the institution of slavery over our wes- 
term domain. It is a reason why we should treat 
with charity and tenderness these children of our 
Common Father — why, in every way which chris- 
tian philanthrophy dictates and the law of our na- 
ture admits, we should seek his moral and social 
elevation. 
It is the office of a powerful Christian State 

To civilize the rude unpolished world 
And lay itundpr th» restraint ot laws, 
To make man miM and sociable to man. 
To cultivate the wild, licentious savag-e 
"With wisdom, discipline and liberal arts, 
The embrlishments of life. Virtues like these 
Wake human na'ure shine, refom the soul 
And break our fierce barbarians into men. 



SPEECH OF ROSWELL HART, ES(l. 

Vociferous calls then arose for Mr. Hakt, who 
in response came forward and said: 

Fellow Americans: — We are among the few 
survivors of the gallant crew of a noble ship, 
which not long ago went out upon a tempestuous 
sea, freighted with all our highest hopes. Our 
course was untried but our hearts were warm, and 
our hands were strong. Oar chart was our own 
patriotic impulses, our pole Star our country's 
good. But we little knew the dangers that beset 
us, and alas it is now onh left us to say our good 
old ship is wrecked and in the deep bosom of the 
ocean buried. We have floated about upon the 
troubled waters clinging to the fragments and 
spars until at last we find ourselves thrown high 
upon the shore like many another shipwrecked 
mariner, with nothing else to do but to cast about 

' as to our best and shortest way to get back to 
our homes and kindred. 

I The American party notwithstanding the mis- 
representations and abuse which have been -be- 
stowed upon it was a noble and patriotic organi- 
zation. To intensify an American sentiment, to 
purify the ballot box, to cultivate peace and fra- 
ternity between members of the National Confed- 
eracy who had become divided upon the unhappy 
dissensions of the slavery question — these were 
the great and cardinal principles of the party. — 
At their earliest promulgation, multitudes from 
«Tery quarter, flocked to its standard. It rushed 



through the land like a hurricane. The old 
parties were left shivering in the wind while 
the new order of things seemed determined to 
work out their complete annihilation. The East, 
the West, the North, and the South, were swept 
with its legions. [Applause.] State after State 
was carried by its serried hosts, and it seemed as 
if the Government of the nation would soon be 
upon its shoulders. The most experienced poli- 
ticians and statesmen stood amazed and confound- 
ed at the spread of this new power, and well they 
might, for its principles found a quick responsive 
echo in every true American heart. Of this great 
party we are proud to have been called supporters. 
The experience of other parties had taught us to 
believe that if we would hold together in knitted 
strength we must be especially solicitous to avoid 
the rocks on which thev had shipwrecked, and to 
this end we purposely ignored the whole sla- 
very question. It was a subject upon which there 
was necessarily much diversity of sentiment, and 
its discussion would breed division and dissension 
in our ranks, and therefore had no place in our 
platform. Our Southern friends prayed to be let 
alone and there would be peace; so we sealed our 
lips in answer to their prayer. Yet what came of 
all this reticence on our part in regard to this pe- 
culiar sore which was to heal so soon if lett at 
rest! In the very first National Convention which 
we held, in which a platform was adopted, we were 
crowded upon the very rock, into the very break- 
ers which it had been our anxious care to avoid, 
and that too by the South themselves. They 
forced upon us that noted r2th Section which was 
intended to pledge us to abide by and maintain 
the principles of the Kanzas Nebraska Act as a 
final and conclusive settlement of the Slavery 
question, and that too, without a word of condem- 
nation of the ruthless violations of the sacred com- 
pact contained in that act. They went further 
too, declaring that Congress possesses no power 
under the Constitution to exclude any State from 
admission into the Union, because its Constitution 
does or does not recognize the institution of Sla- 
very. This was at a time when the whole nation 
was in a ferment of indignation at the passage of 
that act. In what more offensive form could the 
fire brand of dissension have been thrown into 
our midst than this? Yet it came from the men 
who had told us they had come into the American 
Party for peace. And what was the result? Why 
the utter dismemberment of the party throughout 
the North. The Northwest and East were entirely 
lost to us, while in this State we only got through 
the fall canvass by the election of our State ticket 
by a plurality vote, on a platform of our own, made 
at Bingampton, which amounted to a complete re- 
pudiation of the 12th Section. 

Thus has it been from the origin of our party. 
The more we have labored to avoid all discussion 
of what we deemed this dangerons question to us 
as a party, the more determined have the South 
been to force from us some expression of opinion 
upon this very subject they were ever crying out 
to us not to agitate. 

In the National Convention of 1856 the South 
endeavored to force from us similar declarations, 
and for two days and nights angry discussion was 
had, until it seemed almost impossible to restore 
harmony to the party. The result was a declara- 
tion by way of compromise in favor of non inter- 
vention, which was understood then as now, as 
only an artful dodge of the whole question. Thus 
while we have labored for peace, have stified our 
own convictions, have studiously avoided e»enthe 
mention of the slavery question, except with sol- 
emn caution and bated breath, lest we should ren- 
der miserable our Southern brethren — we find 
ourselves in oar brief history, instead of the great 



10 



and triumphant party we once were, broken up 
and shattered; and we, the scattered remnants 
of Israel, to use a vulgar phrase, are "knocked 
into Abraham's bosom. [Laujjhter.] We have 
foundered just where did the Whig and Dem- 
ocraiic parties, and just where will any party 
that lays the flattering unction to its soul thit 
it can ever satisfy the Seuth by anything short 
of that degree of concession which shall establish 
its power in this confederacy as dominant and 
supreme, [ipplause.l 

As a Party, we have now ceased to exist, and its 
dissolution is due to the South, for whom we have 
made such sacrifice. We have worn the old 
clothes of Conservatism until the Southern gentle- 
med have mistaken it for the livery of hewers of 
wood and drawers of water for them. It is high 
time we cast these tattered garments off, and 
shone forth in the garb of independent Northern 
men, released from all obligations hitherto impos- 
ed upon our action as members of the American 
parry, [ipplause.] 

But we are met here by the representation that 
our way is clear, that we have candidates of our 
own that we should support — Bell and Everett. 
Who and what made them our candidates? Does 
any one pretend that either of these gentle 
men were ever members of the American Party.or 
have ever on any occusiou expressed themselves 
at all upon the peculiar tenets of our Parly? Nor 
did the Convention which nominated them pre- 
tend to be an American Convention. They called 
it a Constitutional Union Party. And what is 
there in their platform which is to invite our co- 
operation in pieference to, and in entire disregard 
of the claims of any other candidates in the field. 
The platform has certainly the merit of brevity, 
is unique, and all men can commend it, whatever 
their faith. The Constitution, the Union, and the 
enforcement of the laws. Why didn't they add the 
Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandmentt? What par- 
ty dare go to the people tor its support on any oiher 
platform than the Constitution, the Union, and the 
enforcement of the laws; and what platform has 
been yet submitted by any party which has not 
been in favor of the fundamental recognition of 
the force of the Conslituiion and of a preservation 
of the Union of the States? There is no difference 
upon this general proposition. The question is, 
how are we to understand their interpretation of 
the Constitution? Is it as do the Abolitionists, 
that it does not recognize slavery at all? as the 
Bieckenridge men, that it carries slavery any- 
where and guarantees its protection? is it the 
good old W^hig interpretation, that under it Con- 
gress has the power and should exert it, to pre- 
vent further extension of slavery into territory 
now free, that it is a fiee constitution and made 
for free men, and that the extension of slavery, by 
it or through it, never entered the minds of its 
framers, but rather its restriction and gradual ex- 
tinction. This we wcmld like the c lutious old gen- 
tlemen of the Constitutional Party to have ex- 
plained; lor we have our views on this matter of 
slavery under the Constitution. 

Suppose our elderly friends could get the 
admiuifetration, do they imagine they will 
not be called upon by the South to show 
their hand on this Question. Do they imag 
ine that with their dexterous manipuktions they 
can hush the wild turbulence of their Southern 
allies. W'liy, let them look iibout upon the wreck 
and ruin ot all the great parties of the past quar- 
ter of a century and ask themselves what new 
charm has been imported to them to succeed 
where all othars fail. Some think the industry of 
the country hhould be protected by judicious leg- 
islation—but hold, say the South, it is unconsti- 



tutional. Eivers and harbors should be improved 
90 that the commerce of the country may be en- 
couraged ard facilitated — again the South inter- 
pose the Cor -itu'ion. A Pacific Railroad seems 
to many a n ■ c^sary work to be accomplished in 
binding toge ner the fast increasing people of the 
Pacific couaui , to the Union, and enlarging our 
facilities of cu-mmerce and trade with the opulent 
Eastern couatriea — but the constitution is again 
interposed. Now on all these great questions 
what are they to do? Why they have got to do 
just what tbijjriought to have the manliness to do 
now — to tell in distinct terms, if they mean to 
make special emblazonment of the Consiitutiou , 
on their banners, as to how they understand it in ' 
its application to all the great questions before the 
country. It is useless to siy tons — We meant this 
thing as an evasion — we purposely avoided com- 
mitting ourselves to anything in particular, but we 
have given you men who are a platform in them- 
selves. This wont do. We have had one old Public , 
Functionary who was a platform in himself, and 
God save us from any more such. [Laughter] 
That old capon has slightly gbakeu our confidence 
in human platforms. [Laughter] What John 
Bell and Edward Everett have been, is no pledge 
to us what they will be. They are both ot them 
great and gifted men and personally entitled to 
the profound re.<pect of every American citizen. 
But as conservatives we have got tired of dodging 
around corners on this question of slavery in the 
territories, and we begin to like outspoken men. 
Mr. Douglas with admirable boldness proclaims 
with his own lips his position. Mr. Breckenridge 
and Mr. Lincoln each speak right out — but the 
Bell refuses to tintinnabalate. [Laughter and 
applause.] 

We are then called upon to vote as Americans, 
for candidates who never have been with us, who 
dare not say they are now, and who upon the 
great issues which have crowded our own peculiar 
tenets out of sight, and which are therefore the 
only ones upon which we are called to decide — are 
entirely non-commiital. 

But have we not, as Americans, had enouch of 
this dodging or ignoring the Slavery question? We 
have tried it until we have seen our party torn to 
rags, and scattered to all the winds of :ieaven. We 
have stood by with folded arms, with hearts to feel 
and tongues to speak, yet never a throb, never a 
word to resist when we have seen the South with 
its Democratic allies over-ride sacred compacts — 
stir up civil war in the Territories, threaten and 
attempt to intimidate with pistols and bludgeons, 
our Northern representatives in Congress. We 
have seen legislation for the encouragement of our 
agriculture, commerce, and industry thwarted, for 
no other reason but because it might favor too di- 
rectly our Northern interests. We have heard 
our mechanics and industrial classes sneeringly 
characterized as "mud sills of society," and 
white slaves." Yet with all this we have cried 
pt-ace, when we knew there was no peace, 
while the Si)uth was bold and the North tim- 
orous. In all the fullness of our convictions of 
the value of freedom in developing the magnificent 
resources of our country, of pushing on the march 
of civilization, of exalting the dignity of the na- 
tion among the powers of the earth, forgetful of 
onr loyalty to our own beloved North, to our 
homes, forgetful of the manifold blessings with 
which our free institutions h^ve surrounded us, 
we have passively acquiesced in, and become par- 
ties to all the exactions and impositions which the 
South huve put upon us. Is it not full time that 
we should assert our manhood and self-respect? 
t-Iow long shall these Catalines abuse our patience? 
If the North is a power, and has a place In this 



11 



Confederacy it onght to be felt. Ifthe North is 
really, as we believe it to be, the preponderating 
force in these United States, it is high time it were 
manfully exerted for themaintainen' e of Northern 
interests, and that too witb at lea' .as much per- 
sistence as is shown by the Sontl ; -a the care of 
hers. I for one have become tii i of so much 
bluster and bravado. I value ■ i revere the 
nnion of these States as much as any other man, 
but I cannot shout i ajans any long'^r to a Uuiou 
that does not recognize a North, a potential North, 
as one of its great component elements, as well as 
a South. _ The South is as strong ^.'day as I care 
to see it, in political power, and I do not care to 
aggravate its truculence and dictation, by strength 
eningits hand any further. No more Slave States 
should be our watch-word if we would have peace 
and if we would see Northern interests sustained 
and encouraged. Call this sectionalism if you 
will, but charity begins at home. [Applause.] 

But if we were disposed to vote for Bell and 
Everett, how are we required to do it? Why, we 
must vote the Democratic ticket. Our friends tell 
US there is a little private unders'anding that 10 
men on that electoral ticket will vote for Bell— but 
Mr. Ottendoffer says not, Tamtnany Hall sajs not^ 
and Mr. Butts, editor of the Rochester Union and 
A-dvertiser, who everybody here must admit is 
a candid and sagacious politician, says the elec- 
toral ticket was made by a convention assembled 
to choose Douglas electors, that they were select- 
ed as Douglas electors, and that in consenting to 
have their names used, they are under obligations 
to vote for Douglas. Yet, it turns out that some 
of them say they will vote for Bell,and one, it is said, 
is to vote for Lincoln. We seek in vain for a 
settlement of tbe matter; and to all our enquiries 
we get about as intelligible answer as did the 
gentleman who, seeing a funeral procession going 
by, enquired of an Irishman near by, as to whose 
funeral it was, ' Why, sir, the gintleman in the 
cofian.' [Great Laughter.] There is evidently 
something wrong somewhere. Either Douglas 
men or Bell men are to be disappointed. It may 
be that the Bell men have it arranged all right, 
but it certainly looks suspicions. As Sam Weller 
says — " a weal pie is a werry good pie when you 
knows the lady as made it, and are sure it aint 
cats." [Laughter [ Was ever fusion so nnnat- 
nral ? Old Clay Whigs cheek by jowl with the 
enemies that Henry Clay fought through his 
whole illastrioas career. Americans who have in 
their Binghampton platform, denounced the re 
peal of ttie Missouri compromise — who have heard 
Mr. Fillmore's open dennnciation of it— hob nob- 
bing with its author. Our friends seem really to 
fancy themselves sincere in believing they are 
still for Bell — yet not one of them can talk with 
you ten minutes, but out of the abundance of his 
heart, he is shortly square for Douglas or any- 
body else, to beat Lincoln. But how do they ex- 
pect to elect Mr. Bell, after having sent Mr. Lin- 
coln sky high? Why, they are going to carry the 
South with sufiBcient strength to carry Mr. Bell 
into the House of Representatives, to be elected 
there. Well, how does he stand there? Why, 
one State to cast a vote. [Laughter] But 
suppose they happen to be disappointed in 
carrying so many of the Southern States.- 
We Americans, I should think, had looked 
out into the Southern horizon for help, to our 
hearts sorrow. We were told in 1856, that the 
South were to do great things for Mr. Fillmore, 
and it really seemed as if it were to be so, so long 
as we listened to the blandishments of our chival- 
rous allies in that quarter; tint when the day of 
trial came they inglorionsly fled to the enemy, and 
left us the trophy of a single State. Such ex- 
periences are not satisfactory to renew. 



In the House of Representatives, it must be 
borne in mind, the votes 8t«nd 15 for Lincoln, 12 
for Breckenridge, 1 for Douglas, 1 for Bell, and 4 
to doubtful. Suppose then Mr. Breckenridge 
be excluded. Does the programme look so easy 
to carry out? Lincoln only requires 2 votes to 
elect him. Would it be unreasonable, or impossi- 
ble, that the Breckenridge men, becoming ex- 
asperated at the alliance of tbe Bell men with the 
Douglas men to defeat them throughout the South 
— of defeating them in what they hud good reason 
to claim as their chances for making Lane the 
Vice President in the South, if it had not been fer 
the fusion against them— I say would it be very 
unreasonable to imagine that Mr. Lincoln may 
get the 2 votes required, and thus we might see 
our Bell engineers hoisted by their own petard. — 
[Applause.] 

Now what is there about Lincoln and the Re- 
publican platform that is so repulsive to Americans 
and old Whigs. Wby it is only two years ago 
that we tried our best to unite fully and complete- 
ly with this same Republican party; not in a 
hodgepodge fusion, but to be of them and with 

them, and we only failed on a question of spoils. 

The whole American party and the old Line Whigs 
cf the North, were in favor of forming a united 
opposition to the Democratic party- all admitting 
that, substantially, we were one in principle upon 
all the living issues before the country — and it 
only failed because the Republicans very justly 
claimed that they were great and strong, and fully 
organized, and the less should come to the greater. 
The opposition arrayed against Mr. Seward in the 
Chicago Convention had in view the furtherance 
of that very object, by forcing the nomination of 
some conservative man who would not ue ob- 
noxious to Americans and old Line Wbigs, who 
had so universally expressed their desire for union. 
Wherein is the creed of the Republican party in 
reference to the slavery question different from 
that of the founders of the government, and of Mr. 
Clay, Mr. Webster, and of the whole Wbig party, 
up to the time of its dissolution? Throughout the 
canvas of 1844, from every stump, was sounded 
opposition to the Annexation of Texas, because it 
must involve ns in a war, which would necessarily 
result in the acquisition of Territory, and 
thus add so largely to the slave power. Tbrouah- 
out the Mexican War, and up to the passage of the 
Compromises of 1850, the Whig party never 
changed front on this question. In 1847 the 
Senate of New York, by a vote of 22 to 6, resolved 
that slavery should be excluded from all newly 
acquired territories, and similar action was taken 
in 1848 and 1849. 

In 1847, in the Whig State Convention, over 
which Hon. Washington Hunt presided, and by 
which Millurd Fillmore was nominated for Comp- 
troller, the committee on address, of which James 
Brocks, one of the editors of the New York Ex- 
press, was chairman, reported an eloquent address 
of which the following is an extract: 

Fellow-citizens, dissuiee the Mexican war as sophist^-^ 
m\y. the grt-at truth cannot be put down, that it exis f 
because of the annexation of Texas; that frnm euch ? 
cause we predicted such a consequence W'^uld follow; an^ 
that, hut for that cause, no war woulo have exis eu at all' 
Disuise its intent, purposes and consequences as soph- 
istry may stragRle to 00, the turiher treat tiuth cannot 
be hid eo. that its mnin object is the conqu»8tof a Man et 
for Slaves and that the flng our victorious legions rally 
around, tight under, and fall for, is to be desecrated from 
its holy cnaract r of l^iberty and Kmancipation into an 
errant of Bondage and -lavery In obedience to the 
law«, and in a due and fai hful submission to the renu- 
larly constituted goyernment of our countrv, we will 
rally by and deend our flair on whatever soil or whatever 
sea it is unfurled; but before hiRh Heaven we protest 
against the missi'n on which it ia sent, and we derrand 
its recall to tbe true and pjoper bounds of our country, 
ap soon as in honor ir can be brought home We pro- 
test, too, in the name of the rights of Man, and of Lib- 
erty, against the farther extenslou of Slavery in North 



12 



America. The curse whicb our mother country inflicted 
upon us, ia spite of our fathers' remonstrancps, we de- 
mand shall never blit'ht the virgin soil of the North 
Pacific. • • • • • AVe will not pour out the blood 
of our countrymen, if we can help it. to turn a Free into 
a, Slave soil We will not spend from fifty to a hundred 
millions nf dollars per year to make a Slave Market for 
any portion of our countrymen. We will never, for such 
• a purpose, consent to run up an untold National debt, and 
saddle our posterity with Fund-mongers, Tax-Brokers, 
Tax-gatherers, Laying an excise or impost on everything 
they taste, touch or live by. The Union as it is. the 
whole Uuion. and nuthing but the Union, we will stand by 
to the last— but JSo Mure Territory is our watch-word, 
uijless it be Free. 

Was ever such arrant Black Republicanism 
heard? [Applause.] Who could believe that 
Hunt and Brooks were both of them now in 
agonies of despair because men choose still to en- 
tertain views which they so eloquently maintained 
but a few short years ago? 

But it is said Mr. Lincoln's election would be 
the choice of a President by a minority of the 
popular vote. Why, for twenty years there has 
been but one President elected by the majority 



popular vote, and that was Franklin Pierce. Bat 
yet our friends can see no harm in electing their 
man by a still smaller minority, and that, too, not 
by the people, but by a trick. 

Abraham Lincoln is the only man who can bo 
elected by the people.and therefore who should be- 
He is honest, he is able, he is conservative. I 
cannot, as an old Whig and American, support 
any one else in this campaign. I want to have 
this agitation of the question of slavery put at 
rest, and it never can be. until the South Is taught 
the lesson that it must not be longer used as an el- 
ement of political power. The election of Lin- 
coln will bring peace to the country, advance its 
national interests, restore fraternity and harmony 
between the different sections of the Union. — 
The South will learn that a Northern man can be 
just, and honest, and fearless— that their rights 
will never be invaded, but will be protected and 
guarded. 

The meeting then adjourned. 



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